Tapes of Hussein To Be Analyzed

Published: February 8, 2006

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has turned over to intelligence agencies 12 hours of audio recordings of Saddam Hussein meeting with top advisers, an aide to the chairman, Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, said Tuesday.

Mr. Hoekstra believes the recordings may shed light on whether Mr. Hussein hid unconventional weapons before he was toppled in 2003, said the aide, Jamal D. Ware.

The voice on the recordings has been confirmed by intelligence analysts as Mr. Hussein's, Mr. Ware said.

He could not say when the recordings were made. But a statement from John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor who provided the recordings to Mr. Hoekstra, said on his Web site that the recordings continued ''well into the year 2000.''

Mr. Loftus said he had received the tapes from a former American military intelligence analyst, but it was unclear where the analyst had obtained them. The examination of the recordings was first reported Tuesday in The New York Sun.

Representative Jane Harman of California, the committee's top Democrat, has pushed for hearings but has been rebuffed by Mr. Hoekstra.

''If the committee is reopening an investigation into W.M.D. in Iraq, it should be bipartisan and based on facts, not politics,'' she said.